Mystery Fix - Life to Life

by Dave Goodwin

published: 17 / 4 / 2025

Label: Gare du Nord Records
Format: CD

intro

Excellent 80’s-influenced synth pop from enigmatic duo Mystery Fix.

As with the band’s name, there is a big mystery about this album. Try and find out anything about the band itself. I have tried and so has a plethora of people online it seems. So, I made this my mission of the day to uncloak the mystery that is Mystery Fix and fix it if that makes any sense? Here’s what I have found – “The synthpop project of electroacoustic musician Tim Walters, featuring singer and lyricist Anton Barbeau.” And that’s it. Even if you go onto the excellent Gare du Nord Records website, it’s pretty much the same. Individually however, it was slightly different. Anton Barbeau is an American singer-songwriter and producer and plays guitar, piano, bass guitar, drums, synthesizers, and Mellotron and hails from Sacramento, California. Anton in fact is no mystery at all because since the early 1990s he has released no more than twenty albums, a number of singles and EPs, several anthologies, and had numerous collaborations with other artists. Mystery Fixed. Tim Walters is a sonic and visual artist who has been working in music for a similar amount of time and has brushed shoulders with the likes of Usufruct, Circular Firing Squad and Slaw, Shalmaneser and played electric dulcimer and bass guitar with Pledge Drive and Reconnaissance Fly, His main aspiration in life seems to be that he hopes someday, to be a real live boy. There, another Mystery Fixed. Collectively Mystery fix remain a mystery apart from this additional bit I found from Gare du Nord which reads – “After six singles, Mystery Fix have released their debut album of all-new material on Gare du Nord Records. Twelve tracks of distinctive synthpop to put in your ears.” Mystery fix completed, then? Good, so on to the music itself which is distinctly 80’s synth pop as suggested and quite good it is too. When I first put it on though for some reason I got a Kid Creole fix probably because there is a brass element hidden in here that I wasn’t expecting on the first track, ‘Bask and Be’, the brass being Steve Adams (sax), Chris Grady (trumpet) and Scott Larson (trombone). From here on though they draw likenesses with a who’s who of synthpop giants. They are all hidden in ‘Life to Life’. ‘Fragments’ is a little more synth driven a bit Ultravox/Visage. In moving on down through the tracklisting, ‘Fairy Job One’ sounds very Fad Gadget as does ‘In a Black Car’. ‘Android Eyes’ reminds me of Thomas Leer during his ‘Contradictions’ era as does ‘Insect Scrawls’, while ‘State of Perfection’ recalls early Depeche Mode and ‘We Play Along’ classic John Foxx. It comes in a double gatefold sleeve with Eminem-style artwork on the back. All in all, this is quite the journey back in time to one of the best eras in modern music and it is no mystery now that Mystery Fix do it very well indeed. Mystery Fixed.

Track Listing:-

1 Bask and Be
2 Fragments
3 Fairy Job One
4 Android Eyes
5 Insect Crawls
6 Cinnabar
7 State of Perfection
8 Eighty Days
9 In a Black Car
10 Fairy Job Two
11 We Play Along
12 Life to Life